saturday round up: in which we rock

Mistle thrush, mistle thrush
Lay me down in the underbrush
My naked feet grow weary with the dusk

i purchased the crane wife by the decemberists a couple of years ago and after a listen, shelved it for quite some time. recently, knowing they were coming to charlottesville, i thought i'd give them a second chance and pulled the cd out again. i played it constantly in the car for a few days until i found myself blown away by several of the songs.

i moved on to their recent hazards of love and was immediately smitten. how can you not love a group that leads you to look up things like taiga and offa's wall and corncrake. even though the rake's song is absolutely horrifying, i do so love the big drums! even better are the voices of the ghostly children that come back to haunt the rake, and the dissonant strings that accompany them. there is the romantic lyricism, the occasional heavy metal guitar work, and the full on girrrl power coming from shara worden. and, to top it off, it's a rock opera!

dan and i agreed that attending the show at the charlottesville pavilion would be a nice way to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary, and the kind of concert we could probably bring the kids too. and it was. fabulous.

it was great to see a stage full of odd instruments, three remarkable women in addition to the men, and to hear a sound that was in turns quiet and tumultuous. the hazards of love was pulled off in its entirety with perfection, and the second set included several great selections from previous albums and a rad cover of heart's crazy on you. colin meloy shared a pretty new song about winter in the encore, and ended it all with a sons and daughters from the crane wife, where he invited several people from the audience to join him on the stage. the show closed with the entire audience singing the line, hear all the bombs fade away.

it was good fun, for all. even tristan watched the stage with amazement, though we stayed far back on the grassy slope to protect his wee ears. tashi and her pal rachel seemed to enjoy lounging around under the concert lights, and pointing out freakish members of the audience that were having their share of fun.

the next day there was cake, to celebrate our tenth anniversary.



and today, it's tristan's six month birthday.



big landmarks, accompanied by big fun.